Raising Clark
by Centralia Currie
Summary: The Kents discover that their new son doesn't speak and doesn't seem to understand their language. How will they be able to raise him? Baby Clark fluff.
1. A New Son

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** It's very difficult for the Kents to raise a child who doesn't speak the language? Just a bunch of random fluff pieces about Jonathan, Martha, and their newly adopted son. The purpose of this is purely baby Clark fluff.

* * *

Jonathan Kent wondered out of the barn, looking at the adoption papers in his hand. He had never felt so filthy in his life. He had lived his life as an honest man, a quality that he was planning to pass down to his newly adopted son. But now he had gone behind his son's back to fake the kid's adoption.

"Jonathan, there was no other way," his wife Martha reassured him. Martha had appeared out of nowhere, pulling her jacket over her shoulders and then wrapping her arms around her husband. "No legit adoption agency would let us keep an abandoned child without mounds of red tape."

Jonathan sighed. "I know you're right. But Martha, why did you have to say to Ethan he was adopted?"

"We've been over this a hundred times. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. How else could we explain this young child suddenly running around our home? Besides, honey, have you noticed your new son? He hugs you. He reaches out his arms to you. He knows you love him!"

Jonathan nodded as he and Martha began walking back toward the house, the adoption papers a germ-infested blackmail letter in his hand. "We do have a son now. He's a cute kid, very obedient..." he trailed off.

"And he doesn't speak a word," Martha sighed. "Do you think there could be something wrong with his vocal cords? Should we take him to a doctor? Children are usually talking by his age."

"The thing is, Martha," her husband told her as he opened the back door to the house, "I don't think he speaks a word of English. We don't know where he's from, but he could be from another country, or even another _planet_, for pete's sake. Where's he now?"

"In the living room, playing with your old toys."

Jonathan approached the kitchen counter. "Clark!" he called into the next room. "Clark, I bet you're hungry! Mommy won't be making dinner for a couple of hours yet! How about some milk and a cookie?"

Silence. All they heard were the knocking sounds of plastic toys coming from the next room.

"Clark, honey, you'd better hurry! Daddy loves Mommy's cookies! He'll eat them all and won't leave you any!" Martha called.

_Bump_. Clark had probably thrown his toy plane across the room again, knocking it square into the wall. Still no sounds of little feet rushing into the kitchen.

"You're right," Martha said, raising her eyebrows at her husband. She crossed to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of lemonade. "He doesn't understand of word of English."

"We're going to have to take this slow," Jonathan observed.


	2. Bathtime and Cookies

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** It's very difficult for the Kents to raise a child who doesn't speak the language? Just a bunch of random fluff pieces about Jonathan, Martha, and their newly adopted son. The purpose of this is purely baby Clark fluff.

* * *

Jonathan wrestled his son out of the bathtub with a towel, and little Clark let out a squeal. He loved playing in the water, and hated it when Jonathan drained the tub.

"Come on, Clark, it's almost bedtime," Jonathan laughed. "We still have to brush your teeth and get you into your training pants!"

Clark had wrestled his way out of his adoptive father's arms and back into the tub. The brown-haired toddler began splashing and cooing, trying to soak up every last bit of fun before the water disappeared down the drain.

"You're pretty strong, Clark," Jonathan commented, watching the tub empty. He wrestled the child out of the bathtub a second time and wrapped Clark up in the towel. He towel-dried the little one's hair and slipped a white pajama top with little sailboats and planes on over the child's head. "Jammies," he informed his son. "This is your jammie top. And Clark, these are your training pants." He slipped a pair of Pull-Ups on Clark. Clark did use the toilet, but wasn't completely potty trained. He often wet the bed at night, so the problem was solved with training pants.

"_Boys_!" Martha called from downstairs. She had been washing the dishes while Jonathan was bathing their son. "Time for dessert! I've baked my homemade cookies!"

"Cookies! Here that, Clark? Mommy made _cookies_!" Jonathan helped his son into his matching pajama bottoms and gave him a pat on the back. "Go downstairs, Clark."

Clark just stood there in the bathroom, looking up at his father, blinking his eyes. His mouth was agape in a cute little show of curiosity. Jonathan was folding the towel and hanging it on the towel rack.

"Go on, son," Jonathan encouraged quietly, holding out his hand to Clark and making a motion to shoo him away. "Go downstairs to Mommy."

Clark took a few steps backward, but stopped and kept staring at his father. He either didn't understand or didn't want to move. His father suspected both.

Jonathan sighed. "Come on, Clark." He walked back over to Clark and offered his hand to the boy. Clark took his father's hand, and the pair walked downstairs.

Martha was at the kitchen counter. Upon seeing her son, she went over to help him into a kitchen chair, and presented him with two cookies and a sippy cup full of milk. "So," she said to her son, smiling. "Did you bond with your father in the bathtub?" She scratched her son's scalp through his wet hair.

"We sure did," Jonathan grinned, taking a seat beside his son with a plate full of his wife's cookies. "He's a strong kid, Martha. I grabbed a towel and pulled him out of the tub, holding onto him as much as I could, but he still managed to slip out of my grip."

"He does that with me, too." Martha picked one of the cookies off her husband's plate and showed it to her son. "See, Clark, honey? This is cookie. _Cookie_. You eat it, see? _Eat_." Martha took a small bite out of the cookie.

Clark picked up one of the cookies in his tiny hands and took the smallest bite out of it. He swallowed, took another small bite, and then reached for his sippy cup.

"Good boy, Clark," Jonathan smiled at his son. "You like Mommy's cookies!"

"This is what we do at the kitchen table, honey. We _eat_."

"Eeee," came a sound from Clark's mouth as he set down his sippy cup.

"Honey!" Martha said to Jonathan, reaching for her husband's hand. "I think he said his first word!"

"Close enough," Jonathan chuckled.


	3. Bedtime and the Sandbox

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** It's very difficult for the Kents to raise a child who doesn't speak the language? Just a bunch of random fluff pieces about Jonathan, Martha, and their newly adopted son. The purpose of this is purely baby Clark fluff.

* * *

Every once in a while, Clark wondered into his parents' bedroom in the middle of the night, tagging along Jonathan's old childhood teddy bear. Sometimes he was crying; Jonathan and Martha guessed he had had a nightmare. Sometimes, he looked cranky, and his parents guessed it was because he simply couldn't get to sleep. A few times, he patted his bottom, and Jonathan and Martha knew that he wet his Pull-Ups.

Tonight was one of those nights that Clark was cranky from lack of sleep. Martha was jerked awake by a giant puffball thrown in her face.

"Oww! Jonathan, _what the_—Clark, honey?" Martha's eyes adjusted to the darkness, just in time to see her tiny toddler settling himself into the master bed between his parents. The giant puffball thrown in her face had been Clark's teddy bear.

"I don't think he can sleep, Martha," Jonathan mumbled from the other side of the bed. He had been asleep, too.

"It's okay, sweetie. You just relax and lie in bed with Mommy and Daddy," Martha soothed her son, reaching out to run her hand through his hair in the dark. "You'll be asleep in no time."

"This is our bed, Clark. Mommy and I _sleep_," Jonathan emphasized.

"See," came a tiny coo from their toddler son.

"_Sleep_," Jonathan tried again.

"_Slee_!"

"Almost there, Clark! One more letter! _Sleep_."

"_Slee_!"

Martha felt herself getting woozy with fatigue. "We can do this in the morning, Jonathan," she yawned. _Henry Higgins went on with speech lessons all night, but Henry Higgins didn't have a toddler-age son, _she thought, too tired to laugh to herself.

"Good night, Clark," came Jonathan's voice.

"Niiiii."

* * *

Clark was too little to do any farm chores. One time, Jonathan had allowed his son to harvest tomatoes—there was nothing about picking tomatoes and placing them into a basket that was too hard to handle—but for some reason, Clark enjoyed squeezing the tomatoes until there wasn't any juice left in them. At first, Martha thought this was funny, but then she got tired of washing tomato juice out of Clark's clothes—and Jonathan got tired of losing tomatoes. Clark was rendered choreless until he was a bit older.

The little one did, however, enjoy spending time outside. Jonathan had taken an old tire tractor, turned it on its side, placed a slab of wood inside of it, and filled it with sand. Instant sandbox. Martha had gone through Jonathan's childhood things in the attic until she found an old pail and shovel, and had placed them inside the sandbox for Clark. As Jonathan was firing up the tractor inside the barn to plow a few acres, Martha was kneeling beside the sandbox with her new son.

"Look, sweetie, this is your shovel. And this is your pail. That's a pretty easy word. Can you say 'pail?'"

Clark was quiet. He just stared at his mother.

"Come on, sweetie!" Martha encouraged him. "You can say 'eat,' and 'sleep,' and 'night'…well, _almost_. Can you say 'pail?'"

Clark simply made a sound that sounded like, "Mmmmm." He uncomfortably hugged his shovel to his chest.

"What's wrong, Clark, honey?" Martha asked worriedly.

Clark's eyes filled with tears, and the little one slowly began to cry.

"_Clark_!" Martha exclaimed worriedly. She picked her son up out of the sandbox and squeezed him tight. "What's wrong? Mommy didn't see you get hurt!"

Clark's arms were clutched around his mother's neck, and he was crying onto Martha's shoulder. Martha took a tissue out of her pocket and dried her son's tears. "Clark, honey, what's wrong? _Tell Mommy what's wrong_!"

But of course Clark did not reply, not being able to understand his mother.

_He doesn't usually cry when he wet himself, and he just ate his breakfast. He can't be hungry, _Martha thought, continuing to wipe her son's tears. _He loves his sandbox! Maybe he saw something that scared him. Maybe he saw a spider, or something._

Martha set Clark down on the ground for a moment and handed him the tissue so he could wipe his eyes. She quietly climbed inside of her son's sandbox to look for anything that may have scared or hurt him. There were no sharp twigs, no spiders or insects, nothing…except for a green piece of mineral rock half-buried by a pile of sand in the corner.

But Clark couldn't be afraid of a piece of mineral rock…could he?


	4. Clark and the Meteor Rock

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** It's very difficult for the Kents to raise a child who doesn't speak the language; just a bunch of random fluff pieces about Jonathan, Martha, and their newly adopted son. The purpose of this is purely baby Clark fluff.

* * *

Martha knew there was something wrong with Clark as soon as she took him inside the house; he was holding both hands to his stomach, and he felt warm.

"No wonder you're crying, honey! You feel sick!" Martha exclaimed as she set her toddler son upon the couch. She pulled his little sneakers off, covered him with a blanket, and assured him she would be right back. Clark, of course, didn't understand. As soon as his mother left the room, he began to cry harder.

"Mommy's right here, Clark!" Martha exclaimed as she entered the living room again, handing her son a sippy cup she had filled with ginger ale. "For your tummy," she told her son. "You just drink your ginger ale, and Mommy is going to take your temperature."

Clark calmed down as he drank from his sippy cup. Martha dabbed at his wet eyes with a tissue as she slid the thermometer behind her son's ear.

After a few minutes, Martha slid the thermometer out from behind Clark's ear. _That's strange_, she thought to herself as she gazed at the readout. A few minutes ago, her son had felt as if she was burning up, but according to the thermometer, Clark's temperature was perfectly normal.

Martha gazed at her son in confusion. Clark sipped away at his ginger ale, looking at his mother as if nothing was wrong.

* * *

"I know it seems strange, Jonathan, but that's what happened," Martha told her husband later. Clark was up in his room taking his afternoon nap, and Jonathan was in the kitchen drinking a glass of lemonade. "I was playing in the sandbox with him, and he started to cry. I thought that something had scared him, but there was nothing in there that could have, and then I saw that he was holding his stomach. So I thought he was sick."

"But he wasn't sick after all," Jonathan added. He and Martha had been over the story a few times. He sighed. "I don't know, Martha. Maybe he _did _see something that scared him, and when Clark's afraid, he feels ill."

"There was nothing in the sandbox except for a piece of meteor rock!"

"Maybe the meteor rock frightened him. After all, it's very unusual to see a rock that's glowing green. It's not natural, so it frightened him. The best we can do is get rid of the meteor rock and see if his fear goes away."

Martha sighed. She sounded upset. "I don't know, Jonathan. I love Clark so much, but it's so hard to help him sometimes, because he doesn't understand most of what we're saying. It's difficult to take care of him when we can't communicate with him."

"It's okay, Martha," her husband soothed her. "He's learning. Just give him time."

Martha took a sip of her lemonade and reached for her husband's hand. Jonathan and Martha held hands for a moment, and then they heard a little coo behind them. Turning around, they saw Clark idling by the kitchen door in his afternoon nap wear of a t-shirt and Pull-Ups.

"Hi there, little guy!" Jonathan exclaimed, going over to the doorway and taking his son in his arms. Clark grasped his arms around his father's neck and lovingly squeezed him. "Have a nice sleep?"

"Daaaaa," Clark replied, reaching for his father's hair. He ran his hands through his father's blonde locks.

"That's right, honey!" Martha beamed, rushing over to her son. "I think he's trying to say 'Daddy,'" she whispered to her husband.

"Eeeee?" Clark asked his mother. He was eyeing the kitchen table.

"Of course we can 'Eeeee,'" Martha smiled. "You need something to tide you over until dinnertime, don't you, Clark? How about a nice apple? Mommy will cut one up for you."

Jonathan deposited his son into his little booster seat at the kitchen table. "See, honey?" he asked his wife gently. "He's learning. Everything's going to be all right. He knows 'Eeeee,' and 'Slee,' and pretty soon, he'll know Mommy and Daddy."


	5. A Warning From Sherriff Ethan

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** Okay, so maybe I am developing something of a plot. I have no idea where this is going. I'm just going to work with it.

* * *

Martha and Jonathan were reluctant to venture from the Kent farm, because the rest of Smallville was in utter chaos, even though the meteor shower had happened a while ago. The first time Martha had gone to the store to buy sippy cups and Pull-Ups for Clark, she had come back to the farm in tears; she had never seen so much suffering on the streets of Smallville.

But things were getting better. Martha now took Clark on her outings to town, and many of the Kents' friends and neighbors were stopping them to say hello and meet Martha and Jonathan's adopted son.

Martha lifted Clark into the front basket of the shopping cart at the supermarket. "Clark, honey, this is the grocery store, where we buy food so we can eat."

"Eeee," said Clark quietly, squeezing the teddy bear he'd brought with him to the store.

"That's right, honey. Eeee," Martha laughed. She rolled the shopping cart through the front doors of the supermarket and into the produce section. "Now, sweetie, we live on a farm, so we don't have to get a lot of fruits and vegetables. But there are some things we just can't grow on our own, like bananas." She stopped by the display of bananas, picked up a ripe bunch of them, and put them into the cart behind Clark. "We need bananas. Can you say 'banana?'"

Clark was quiet.

Martha tried again. "_Ba-na-na_?" she asked her son, sounding out each of the syllables.

Clark just kind of grasped his teddy bear. 'Banana' was obviously too big of a word for him.

"It's okay, sweetie. We'll try again later." Martha moved on to the oranges, and selected a few ripe ones. After selecting a head of lettuce, she moved on to the deli counter.

"We have to get some cold cuts to make sandwiches for lunch," she told Clark as she moved the cart to the counter. "You love eating sandwiches with Daddy, don't you, honey?"

"Why, hello, Martha!"

Martha turned around. Sherriff Ethan was standing beside the counter, holding a basket full of groceries and wearing his uniform. He had probably just gotten off duty. "Hi, Sherriff," Martha smiled.

"Out shopping with the bundle of joy? How's he doing?"

Martha smiled. "He's doing just fine. And he's certainly a bundle of joy; he brings Jonathan and I a lot of happiness." She ran a hand through her son's hair.

"Speaking of Jonathan, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. A lot of other farmers in the area have been complaining of meteor rocks in their fields. Big ones. They go out to plow a few acres, and the meteor rocks get in the way and break their tractors."

"Jonathan hasn't said anything," Martha admitted, "but I'll warn him. Clark here seems to be afraid of the meteor rocks. One got in his sandbox the other day, and he just started to cry. I think he thinks they're unnatural."

Sheriff Ethan chuckled. "Cute kid. Well, Martha, just thought I'd let you know. Tell Jonathan I said hi."

"Will do."

* * *

"There's my son!"

"Daaaaa!"

Little Clark toddled across the kitchen floor and grasped his father's legs in a hug. Jonathan bent down, picked his son up off the floor, and hugged him tight. "Clark, say 'Daddy.'"

"Daaaaa."

"_Dad-dy_."

"Daaadaaaa."

"Close enough. Now Clark, say 'Mommy.'"

"Instead of saying 'Mommy,' how about you give Mommy a hand?" Martha asked in exasperation. She had heavy grocery bags in her hands as she made her way through the side door.

"Sorry, honey." Jonathan grabbed a grocery bag from his wife, and set it on the counter. "After we get the groceries put away, Clark and I are going to watch the game on TV. It's never too early to start teaching my son football. Clark, can you say 'football?'"

Blank stare.

"_Foot_-_ball_."

A blink, and then another blank stare.

"You're confusing me, Daddy," Martha said, imitating Clark. "Besides, Jonathan," she added in her normal voice. "He doesn't need to watch football. I'll be making dinner, and he needs to learn how to set the dinner table."

"He can't even _reach_ the dinner table!" Jonathan grabbed another grocery bag from Martha and set it on the counter. "Oh, good," he remarked, peering inside. "You got the ham I like."

"Speaking of ham, guess who I ran into at the deli. Sherriff Ethan. He's been talking to other farmers in the area, and apparently, they're running into large meteor rocks as they're plowing and ruining their tractors. You need to be careful."

"We'll be careful. Won't we, son?" Jonathan cast a look at Clark.

"Daaaaadaaaa," was Clark's only reply.


	6. ABC Lessons and Close Call

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** Okay, so maybe I am developing something of a plot. I have no idea where this is going. I'm just going to work with it.

**Thank you** to my reviewers for your kind comments.

* * *

"Clark, this is the letter A. As in 'apple.' Like the apples we grow in the backyard!" Martha Kent pointed to the picture of an apple in the alphabet book she was reading with Clark. The two of them were sitting on Clark's bed in his room. "Honey, can you say 'apple?'"

"Aaaaa," was all Clark could manage.

"Okay. And what do we do with 'Aaaa?'"

Clark just gave his mother a blank stare.

"Come on, sweetie! What do Mommy, Daddy, and Clark do with apples?" When Clark still looked lost, Martha pantomimed eating an apple.

"Eeee!" Clark announced.

"Good boy!" Martha laughed, ruffling her son's hair.

The full scope of parenting was hitting Martha little by little. She knew that eventually, she would have to enroll Clark in school, but Clark would have to master English first. It would help, Martha thought to herself, if she and Jonathan knew where Clark was from. But that spaceship-like thing that was currently sitting in the storm cellar didn't seem too promising. Was the kid really from another planet?

"After A, Clark, comes the letter B. B, as in 'ball.' Can you say _ball_?"

"Baaa."

"Try again, honey. _Ball_." Martha put a deep emphasis on the L.

"Ball," said Clark quietly.

"Clark, honey!" Martha dropped the alphabet book, wrapped her arms around her son, and kissed him. "You said your _first full word_! Oh, Mommy's so proud! This deserves an extra cookie at dessert tonight!" In response, Clark let out a small cry and tugged on his mother's blouse. He obviously wanted something.

"What is it, sweetie? What do you want?"

Clark put his thumb in his mouth. Martha gently grabbed hold of her son's hand and removed his thumb from his mouth. "Clark, sweetie, we don't suck our thumb," she told him, shaking her head. "What do you want? Are you hungry? Is that why you're putting something in your mouth?"

Clark looked very distressed. He let out another cry, and pointed inside his mouth.

"I think you're either hungry or thirsty. Let's go downstairs and get you something." Martha picked up Clark and carried him downstairs to the kitchen.

This was one of the moments she had always dreaded. Late at night, lying next to Jonathan in bed, she confessed that there would be moments where Clark would want something, and she wouldn't be able to understand him. "Until he can speak the language, honey, I worry," she wept to him.

"I understand, Martha. But let's just take it little by little. We have a pretty smart kid," Jonathan replied, reaching for his wife's hand and squeezing it.

Martha sat Clark down at his booster seat on the kitchen table, then went to the kitchen counter and picked up a banana. "Snack?" she asked Clark, holding up the banana. "Clark, are you hungry? Do you want a snack?"

Clark let out a cry. Tears were forming in his eyes. He grabbed something invisible in front of him, and shoved it into his mouth. He pantomimed a sucking motion with his lips.

"Oh!" Martha exclaimed. She went to the cupboard and took out an empty sippy cup. "Drink, honey? Are you thirsty!"

"EEEEEEE!" Clark squealed and tried to move out of his booster seat, reaching anxiously for the sippy cup in his mother's hands.

Martha laughed. "Wait until I fill it, sweetie!" She carefully went to the refrigerator and filled the sippy cup with milk. Relieved that she understood what her son wanted, she sat down next to him at the kitchen table and handed him the sippy cup. Clark took it, shoved it into his mouth, and drank thirstily.

At that moment, the back door opened, and Jonathan walked in, his jeans and plaid t-shirt splattered in dirt. "Honey, can you come out back and looked at the tractor with me? It won't start."

"You didn't run into a meteor rock out into the field, did you?" Martha asked worriedly. "The Sherriff warned us!"

"No, I don't think so, honey. It just won't start; I think there's something wrong with the motor. At most, we'll probably just have to get a repairman out here."

"Okay. I'm coming." Martha picked Clark out of his booster seat. Clark still looked as happy as ever, sucking away at his sippy cup as if nothing was wrong. "Come on, Clark. Let's go help Daddy."


	7. Fixing the Tractor

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** Okay, so maybe I am developing something of a plot. I have no idea where this is going. I'm just going to work with it.

**Thank you** to my reviewers for your kind comments.

* * *

Martha carried Clark into the barn and sat him on a bale of hay by the barn door. He was still sipping his sippy cup. "Clark, sweetheart, Mommy has to help Daddy. You just stay right _here_-" she pointed to the bale of hay—"and don't move." She shook her head _no_.

Clark didn't seem like he was interested in moving. Satisfied, Martha went over to the tractor. Jonathan was on lying on his back with a wrench in one hand, examining the bottom. His legs were sticking out of the side of the tractor.

"Martha, I want you to climb up on top and try to start the engine," her husband yelled to her. "It won't start, but I think that if you try, I'll be able to see what the problem is."

"Okay, honey." Martha climbed up onto the tractor. Just a few years ago, she had been a young coed in Metropolis, never imagining she'd eventually become a farm wife. But operating the tractor wasn't as hard as it looked…at least, not after a few years of practice.

Martha turned the key in the ignition. The engine seemed to sputter, and there was a weird sound coming from underneath.

Martha saw Jonathan's legs disappear from the side of the tractor. He was crawling even further underneath it. "_Again, Martha_!"

Keeping her eye on Clark, who was still sitting on his bale of hay, Martha started the tractor again, to no avail. This time, though, she heard a _clunk _coming from underneath; it sounded like Jonathan was knocking on something with a wrench.

"_One more time_, Martha!"

Martha had to start the tractor about four more times, but each time, it sounded better and better. Finally, with one final _whack_ of the wrench, Martha saw a large chunk of green meteor rock expelled from underneath. It shot out from the bottom of the tractor and landed near where Clark was sitting. "OWWW!" came Jonathan's yell from underneath.

"Jonathan!" Martha hopped down from the tractor and pulled on her husband's leg. Jonathan crawled out; his face was filthy, and he had a large bloody gash on the side of his right arm.

"Something cut me," he told his wife. "Something sharp, from underneath. But I think I fixed it. There was a chunk of meteor rock cut in there. Must have gotten caught up in the engine somewhere."

"Jonathan, that cut looks serious," Martha said worriedly. "I think you might need stitches. It looks pretty deep."

Meanwhile, over on the bale of hay, Clark began crying.

"It's okay, sport," Jonathan smiled, reaching for an old dishtowel nearby. He wrapped it around his arm. "Daddy looks hurt, but he'll be okay. I'm fine, Clark."

Clark continued to cry. He hadn't spilled his milk or dropped his sippy cup; the cup was still held in both of his hands. But tears were streaming down his face, and he looked as if he were in pain.

"Clark, sweetie, everything's okay!" Martha said brightly. She went over to the hay and picked the distressed toddler up in her arms. "Clark, calm down! Daddy's fine!" She hugged him tighter, then looked over at her husband in alarm. "Jonathan, he's burning up! Feel him!"

Jonathan went over to his wife, and felt his son's forehead with his free hand. "Well, he's crying, Martha. Of course he's going to be warm. Let's just go inside and try to bandage my arm up. Maybe that'll calm him down."

Martha nodded and continued to hug her son worriedly. Finally, she felt him go limp in her arms. She looked down at him in alarm. "Jonathan…I think he's _passed out_!"


	8. The Emergency Room

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Author's Note:** Okay, so maybe I am developing something of a plot. I have no idea where this is going. I'm just going to work with it.

**Thank you** to my reviewers for your kind comments.

* * *

Martha had never been more panicked in her life as she rushed her son inside and lay him down on the couch. She didn't know what to do first: examine Jonathan's arm or try to rouse her son.

"Martha, let's just get in the truck and go to the hospital," Jonathan told her calmly. "They'll examine my arm and look at Clark."

Jonathan's arm. Martha felt a pang of guilt as she remembered. "You'll arm will get infected if it isn't looked at soon," she worried aloud. "Grab the keys to the truck, and I'll strap Clark into his carseat. Then I'll drive us to the hospital."

Martha didn't want Clark seeing a doctor. Even if she and Jonathan explained away that Clark was adopted from a foreign country and didn't speak the language, Martha was still leery about any doctor seeing him. If Clark was from another planet—the spaceship was pretty circumstantial, yet convincing, evidence—she didn't want any doctor touching him. Usually, Jonathan held the same attitude. But the fact that Jonathan was rapidly losing blood didn't help.

Martha strapped the still unconscious toddler into the child seat in the back of Jonathan's truck. Jonathan got into the back, his injured arm bleeding through the old towel. With his free arm, he was able to fasten his seatbelt. "I'll keep an eye on Clark. Maybe I can get him to wake up," he called to his wife as she got into the driver's seat and started the truck.

* * *

The closer that Martha got to the hospital, the better Clark seemed to get. Two blocks away, Jonathan called up to his wife that Clark's temperature seemed to be just fine. As Martha pulled into the emergency room parking lot, Clark woke up and began to cry.

"Clark, sweetie, it's okay! We came to the hospital for Daddy!" Martha cut the engine of the truck, opened the driver's side door, and opened the truck's back door to get Clark out of his carseat. Her husband was right; Clark's fever had gone down.

Luckily, the emergency room at the Smallville Medical Center was nearly empty. As Jonathan's arm was sewn up in an exam room, Martha sat with Clark on her lap out in the waiting area.

"Are you okay, Clark, honey? Why did you pass out like that?" Martha quietly asked her son, feeling his forehead. She just couldn't get over the fact that he felt so normal after feeling so warm just a short time ago.

Clark continued to play with the stuffed puppy in his hands, unable to understand his mother. Martha had found the puppy on the floor of the truck—obviously a toy Clark had brought along on a previous car ride—and had given it to him to play with.

_If only you could understand_, _Clark_, Martha thought to herself, tears welling up in her eyes. Clark looked to be about three years old, and any other three-year-old would be able to understand her and talk back to her. But Clark was different. Clark was like a newborn; he had to rely on his parents for all of his needs to be satisfied. He could cry and laugh and say parts of words, like "Eeeee" and "Slee," but that simply wasn't enough.

But this wasn't the first time Clark had had an episode like the one he'd just had. Vaguely Martha remembered Clark crying in the sandbox a few days ago, becoming warm and holding his tummy. She remembered telling Jonathan she thought Clark was afraid of meteor rocks.

_Meteor rocks!_

_Jonathan removed a large meteor rock from underneath the tractor!_ Martha exclaimed to herself. _What if Clark was just affected by the meteor rock, like he was a few days ago in the sandbox?_

Martha smiled and hugged her son, who was still playing in her lap. "Clark, honey, it's going to be okay. Mommy thinks you might have an allergy."

"Maamaa," was Clark's reply, looking up at his mother with big eyes.

"That's right, honey! I'm your mama. Smart boy." Martha hugged Clark tighter.

"Martha!"

Jonathan was walking into the waiting room, holding his bandaged arm.

"Jonathan, are you all right?" Martha asked worriedly, helping Clark to his feet as they stood up from their chairs.

"Fine. I got some stitches, and they put a bandage on it. The cut was pretty deep." Jonathan ruffled the hair of his son. "Are you all right, Clark? Have you been waiting long with Mommy?" Clark just smiled sheepishly up at his adoptive father and hugged his toy puppy.

"He's all right. I think I have it figured out, though. I think he's allergic to the meteor rocks."

"_Allergic to the meteor rocks_?"

"Yeah. Remember a while ago, when he felt sick after playing in the sandbox? I think he has some sort of allergy."

"Martha, who has an _allergy_ to the meteor rocks? They're just glowing pieces of rock."

"They're from outer space. As is Clark…we think," Martha added quietly.

Jonathan sighed. "Well, I think we need to test this first. Come on, let's go home and put the adopted bundle of joy to bed. We'll talk more tomorrow."


	9. The Ultimate Test

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Smallville or these characters.

**Thank you** to my reviewers for your kind comments.

* * *

Jonathan, being the stubborn man that he was, refused to take it easy with his arm. The very next morning, he was up and working as usual.

"Jonathan, I'd appreciate it if you'd follow the doctors' orders," Martha said, sounding anxious as she cut Clark's breakfast pancakes up for him.

"It doesn't hurt, Martha. It only itches. I'm fine." Jonathan served his wife a pancake. "Have some breakfast. You need to eat, too."

Clark seemed to be in a good mood. He had slept through the night peacefully and cooed happily when his mother came in to rouse him. When Martha had dressed him and taken him downstairs for his breakfast, Clark had exclaimed, "Daadaa!" and ran over to his father, arms open wide.

"I think I could get used to this parenting thing," Jonathan had kidded.

Now Martha was quiet as she finished cutting her son's pancakes. She handed Clark the small plastic fork, and Clark began to eat small bites. "I don't want to hurt him, Jonathan. It breaks my heart to see Clark sick or in pain," she said to her husband quietly as she turned to face her own breakfast. "But I want to know for sure. I want to know if Clark has some sort of allergy to those meteor rocks."

"The more we know about Clark, the easier it'll be to raise him, honey," Jonathan assured his wife.

Clark knew that something wasn't quite right. He cocked his head to the side, eyeing his parents.

"Don't worry, little guy," Jonathan assured his son. "Mommy and Daddy are going to take good care of you. You'll be fine."

Clark smiled, and Martha's heart soared. She loved seeing her son happy.

* * *

"Okay, sweetie. Let's build a sandcastle. Here, let's take our pail and shovel."

A short time later, Martha was playing with Clark in his sandbox. Her voice was shaking; she felt like such a bad parent. She didn't want to hurt her son, but she needed to know if the meteor rocks really hurt Clark.

As Clark was piling sand into his pail with the shovel, Jonathan snuck up behind him, holding the large chunk of meteor rock that he had forced out from the tractor yesterday. Martha's eyes dotted back and forth between her husband and her son; at first, Clark didn't seem to react, but when Jonathan was about five feet away, Clark put down his shovel and began to cry.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Martha asked, picking up her son's hand. After all, Clark could just be hungry.

All of a sudden, Clark grabbed his stomach with one hand, and his chest with the other, and fell to his side. He was still crying, and he was starting to burn up with fever.

"He's sick!" Martha yelled to her husband. "He's running a fever!" She climbed inside the sandbox and held Clark in her arms.

Jonathan turned around and hurled the rock as far away from him as he could, using his good arm. Then he knelt down beside Martha, and felt his son's forehead. "He's really burning up," he said to his wife quietly. "And he keeps holding his chest, like he's in pain."

Clark had stopped crying, but he was numb and barely breathing. "Take him inside," Jonathan told Martha. "Get him comfortable, on the sofa."

Martha held Clark close to her chest, and Jonathan helped her take Clark inside the house and place him comfortably on the living room sofa. Martha stroked his brow and held his little hand, and Jonathan covered him with a blanket.

"He's starting to come around," Martha said quietly. "His fever is waning."

Jonathan nodded and watched as his son blinked his teary eyes, then grabbed his blanket and pulled it tighter around his chest. "Maamaa," Clark moaned. "Daadaa."

"Don't worry, Clark," Martha smiled. "We're here for you. We know your weakness, and we're going to protect you." She turned to Jonathan. "I still feel like a bad parent."

"Martha, it was the only way we could find out," her husband assured her. "You're not a bad parent, and you never will be."

Martha wiped a tear. "Thanks, honey."


	10. Goodnight and Love

**Author's Note**: This is the final chapter. A big **thank you** to all of my reviewers!

* * *

The good mood that Clark had woken up in turned sour for the rest of the day. He stayed inside, moped, and whimpered. It was almost as if he knew that his parents had betrayed him by knowingly testing him with a meteor rock.

"Honey, do you think we could spare a few dollars and get him a new toy?" Martha asked her husband as she made dinner that evening. "I want to make it up to him."

"Martha, I don't want our family to be about that," Jonathan told his wife. "Clark needs you and me. He needs the people that love him."

"How can we convince Clark that we love him? I don't think he's going to forgive us that easily."

"We're Maamaa and Daadaa, Martha. He _has_ to trust us." Jonathan gave his wife a kiss on the cheek, then went into the living room, where Clark was sitting on the floor and playing with his toy airplane.

Jonathan sat down next to his son, and clutched his son's hand. "Hi, Clark. How are you feeling?"

Of course Clark didn't reply, not being able to understand. He just soared his airplane through the air, keeping a tight hold on it.

"We're sorry if we intentionally hurt you, honey. Your mother feels like a bad mother. But now we know what you're sensitive to the meteor rocks, and we need to know that to protect you. Your mother and I love you. _Love_, Clark." Jonathan knew that Clark couldn't understand, but he felt he had to keep on speaking. "Love isn't something you can do, like eating or sleeping, but it's something you feel. It's the feeling I get when I'm with you and Mommy. It's a really good feeling; a strong feeling of affection and protection."

Clark put his airplane down and gazed up at his father, almost as if he was listening.

Jonathan wrapped his little boy in a hug. "I love you, Clark. Your mommy loves you, too. We're a family, and we're going to be a strong one, okay?"

"Daadaa," was Clark's only reply.

Clark dutifully ate his dinner, and his bathtub splashing that night was more cheerful than expected. He clearly felt a lot better, both physically and emotionally.

After Clark had been dressed into his jammies and Pull-Ups, he happily toddled down to the kitchen for his dessert. He knew that after bathtime came dessert in the kitchen with Mommy.

Martha fed Clark a slice of cherry pie, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "Sweetheart, what do we do in the kitchen again?"

Clark looked lost, and Martha pantomimed eating.

"Eeee!" Clark exclaimed.

"_Eat_," Jonathan corrected him. "Clark, honey, it's _eat_."

"Eeee!"

"Eatttt." Martha emphasized the 't.'

"Eat," said Clark quietly.

"Very good, Clark!" Martha exclaimed, giving him another kiss. "This almost deserves another piece of cherry pie!"

"Don't spoil him, Martha."

After dessert, of course, came bedtime. Usually, Martha tucked Clark in and kissed him goodnight, but tonight Jonathan joined her.

"Goodnight, son," Jonathan smiled, running a hand through his son's hair as Martha pulled Clark's blankets up to his chin. "Have a nice sleep."

"Mommy loves you, Clark." Martha gave her son a kiss goodnight on the cheek.

"Daddy loves you too, Clark," Jonathan added.

Clark clutched his blankets. "Clarr love Maamaa Daadaa."

Tears of joy welled up in Martha's eyes. She turned to look at her husband. "Jonathan!" she wept.

"I heard him, Martha. I heard him." Jonathan placed one arm around his wife, and the other around his son. "I told you we're raising a smart kid," he smiled, hugging his family.

**THE END**


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